Gapped repeats and palindromes are repetitive structures occurring in words that were investigated extensively within theoretical computer science (see, e.g., [1]}, [2]}, [3]}, [4]}, [5]}, [6]}, [7]}, [8]}, [9]}, [10]}, [11]} and the references therein) with motivation coming especially from the analysis of DNA and RNA structures, where they were used to model different types of tandem and interspersed repeats as well as hairpin structures; such structures are important in analyzing the structural and functional information of the genetic sequences (see, e.g., [1]}, [2]}, [4]}).
